The opening match in the Caribbean Premier League in the early hours of Thursday morning sees the defending champions albeit under a new name Trinbago Knight Riders taking on the St Lucia Zouks at the Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad.
The Knight Riders begin the tournament as the favourites to retain their title while the Zouks are the outsiders of the sextet so it will be interesting to see how this match plays out with that in mind.
Trinbago Knight Riders
The Knight Riders have a daunting looking squad for this tournament. Hashim Amla and Brendon McCullum are standout players with the bat while the likes of Dwayne Bravo, Sunil Narine and Kevon Cooper make up a decent bowling attack and that is without even mentioning the likes of Ramnaresh Sarwan and Nikita Miller who have come in this season.
Trinbago won the title last year but they will be without their leading and third highest runscorers from last year in Jacques Kallis and Cameron Delport while Samuel Badree’s 12 wickets will need to be replaced too as he wasn’t retained for this season.
St Lucia Zouks
Last season was one which never got going for the Zouks and they will be eager to get off to a fast start this year and given that they have their home leg of the tournament last they have plenty of time to find some momentum before the crunch time comes for them. That is no bad thing.
Kevin Pietersen was a star man last season but he isn’t around this year. Ross Taylor and Henry Davids also had big impacts but aren’t around for this campaign but the Zouks do have the World T20 winning captain Darren Sammy still in their ranks and Shane Watson looks a great addition to the side.
Betting
Trinbago are favourites to win the match and I don’t think it is hard to see why with the bowling attack that they have but St Lucia don’t lack much with the ball and you could easily argue they have the longer of the two batting line ups. St Lucia won the fixture between the two last year and in the reverse meeting had put up a massive score prior to the rain coming.
I’d like to see how all the sides get on before I crack into teams at short prices but there is one bet I like in the match and it comes in the form of the most sixes where St Lucia look overpriced to me.
I accept that Trinbago have Brendon McCullum in their ranks but he won’t have been in the Caribbean long having only finished playing for Middlesex on Friday night and it is a big change going from English wickets to Caribbean ones. Even then he never really set the world alight.
If you take him out of the Knight Riders though the massive six hitters don’t become apparent. Hashim Amla doesn’t hit many while Darren Bravo is one of those who can hit sixes but maybe doesn’t hit as many as he should and the same can be said for Ramnaresh Sarwan and one or two others.
St Lucia on the other hand go big right from the top. Johnson Charles and Andre Fletcher naturally hit big as we’ve seen for the West Indies in recent times while Shane Watson and David Miller can clear any rope going around too.
Trinbago do have the luxury of Sunil Narine who might not go for many but the rest of the attack are going to be targeted and with the likes of Shillingford, Morkel and Leie likely to be tough to score off for big hitters let alone moderate ones I feel there is a slight edge in the price of the Zouks to hit the most sixes here.
Tips
Back St Lucia Zouks Most 6s for a 4/10 stake at 2.50 with Winner Sports
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